The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-04-16
PARTISAN DuELING.

lie INSTITUTION VI ullellHS is upuOuDL-
ealy greatly abused in France; rever-
theless there are often serious duels,
and the theory of dueling is seriously
accepted, false as it is. 1t is custom
which has entered so deeply into French
manners that it is not easy to foresee
even its obsolescence. In a well-known
Partisan newspaper, Il Evenemett, there
appeared recently the following appre.
citation of dueling: I'm France every
body fights, or is liable to fight, and no
one thinks of contesting the legitimacy
of dueling. PREPARATION by arms renders
more service to social order than po-
lice magistrate and tribunal of justice.
On leaving the courthouse the offender
and the offended still retain the feelings
of hatred which brought them there.
The poisoned words of the lawyers have
merely added to the anger of the
parties, and resentment thus left smol-
dering in families may bring about
all kinds of complications and Grim
inal acts. In meeting on the ter
rain the case is different. Whatever
the result of the combat, whether the
ball be lost in the branch of tree or
fixed in q shoulder, whether the sword
penetrate the breast or be stopped by IA
rib, there is an end of the matter. The
offense is washed out, and there is no
Judgment, no decision, so good as the
DroceS-UerbaJ in which the seconds de-
clare honor to be satisfied. The duel is
convention which not only has force
of law, but which is even superior to
law, inasmuch as the judge can only
give satisfaction to one of the parties,
whereas the seconds send away both
parties acquitted, and without the
possibility of there being any Interior
reproach.n
This is fair statement of the views
of France of the nineteenth century on
the subject-views which have been eX-
pressed not only in the press, but in
legislative assemblies. In the time of
Napoleon I. bill for the suppression
of dueling was presented in the Conseil
d 'Etat, and rejected after discussion,
one of the reasons for not taking any
legislative action in the matter being
the following: There is multitude
of offenses which legal justice does not
punish, and amongst these offenses
there are some so indefnable, or con-
cerned with matters so delicate, that
the injured party would blush to bring
them out into broad daylight in order
to demand public justice. In these cir
cumstances it is impossible for man
to right himself otherwise than by u
duel"
Guizot declared, in the tribune Of the
French Parliament: "French society
must give up the idea of preventing a
duel which has a just ground Berger,
Brillat-Savarin, Jules Janin, Walsh,
Lemontey, Chatelain, Armand Carol,
have defended dueling as an institution
which three centuries of legislation and
philosophy have been powerless to de-
throne. 1t is prejudice, relic of
barbarism, or whatever you may please
to call it. That they will admit, while
at the same time arguing to show that
it is necessary for the existence of socie-
ties. Jules Janin says: 81 would not
consent to live twenty-four hours in
society. such as ii is at present cstab-
lished and governed, if dueling did not
exist" There is hardly a name illus
trious in the political, literary and
social annals of France during the
nineteenth century which is not the
name of duelist. Even the magistrates
themselves fight duels. In fact, through
out the century dueling has continued
in France as u social scourge, varying
in intensity according to the greater or
less intensity of the passions of the mo-
ment. Now, as in the times of Louis
XIV, justice is powerless to suppress
the practice, and Legislators seem to
have abandoned the attempt to do SO,
or even to regulate dueling.
The French duel is a single combat
between two or several persons. who
fight voluntarily, for some private in
terest, in accordance with a previous
agreement, and in consequence of a
challenge in the form of a cartel, the
motive of which is some offense. The
of1'ense having been given and taken up,
the principals choose their seconds,
who arrange the whole affair, discuss
the interests of their clients, establish
the conditions Of the duel in all its de-
tails. The rights, duties, conduct, of
principals and seconds are stated with
great minuteness in the Comte de Cha
teauvillards ESSdj sur le Duel, and with
still greater minuteness in the recent
work of the Comte de Verger de Saint
Thomas on dueling. 1t would be out
side our purpose to enter more deeply
upon the subject of these technicalities,
which occupy in the aforementioned vol
ume some three hundred pages. 1t will
suffice to say that the usual arms are the
rapier, the saber-used almost exclusive
ly in the army-and the pistol that be-
fore the meeting the conditions of the
encounter are infinitely detailed in a
prOceS-verbGL signed by the seconds;
and that upon the encounter another
proceS-Uerbal is drawn up recording the
result, and signed by the seconds and